​​Photo album of 17-year high-school reunion sparks nostalgia in Vietnam

Monday, June 18, 2018, 17:30 GMT+7

The alumni of the 2001 class 12A2 from Bui Huu Nghia, now in their mid-30s, returned to their old school, donning student uniforms and posing for photos in the very classroom they studied in two decades ago

Alumni from a school in the southern Vietnamese city of Can Tho made a splash on social media after posting a touching photo album celebrating 20 years since starting high school. The Bui Huu Nghia High School graduating class of 2001 was all smiles during a 17-year reunion celebration on May 13.

The alumni, now in their mid-30s, donned white shirts and ao dai, mimicking the school uniforms from their adolescence, as they basked in the nostalgia of their teenage years. Even a pregnant alumna who could not wear ao dai managed to put on a white T-shirt to fit in with the group.

After receiving permission from the school board, the group held a photoshoot reliving their funniest classroom moments – passing notes, dozing off, celebrating – in the same room they spent hours studying from 1998 to 2001.

Photos from their shoot were quick to take over social media, garnering hundreds of thousands of likes, shares, and comments in just a few hours after being posted on Monday. Rising to social media fame was the easy part. It was getting the gang back together that made things tough.

Weeks of planning went into guaranteeing that every member of the 2001 class 12A2 was back in Can Tho for the reunion, including several alumni who traveled hours from Ho Chi Minh City and other provinces, and others who only had a few hours to spend at the reunion before rushing back to work.

“We came up with the idea of getting everyone together for something special during a catch-up at a coffee shops,” Ho Hong Xuan, one of the group’s organizers, said. “Although the school has been renovated and the class is not the same as it used to be, having everyone together made it a truly special day," Xuan added.

In the past, the group would meet during the Lunar New Year, or Tet, but this is the first time that all 31 members have been able to be in one place at the same time.

To keep the tradition going, they decided to adopt May 13 as an official annual reunion date. "Nowadays, social network sites make it easy to keep in touch with each other. That’s why we still maintain a Facebook group," said one of the alumni.

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